Sam McAllister with Billie Piper, who plays her in Scoop Photo: Dave Benett/WireImage
Duke of York's disastrous Newsnight interview : So well known that his alibi, the Pizza Express branch in Woking, and the fact that he couldn't break a sweat after being shot at in the Falkland Islands have become tired jokes.
A much less familiar story behind it. how the BBC convinced Prince Andrew to intervene so forcefully that his own mother effectively fired him as a working member of the royal family. Enter Netflix.
The streaming service's release of Scoop promises to provide “insider insight into how the women of Newsnight secured Prince Andrew's infamous interview.”
But the much-hyped film could also reopen old wounds between those who worked together to create one of the most shocking works of broadcasting in modern times, but have since gone their separate ways.
Scoop's coverage of the story featured the main characters Sam McAllister, the producer who first contacted York's team (played by Billie Piper), and Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis, played by Gillian Anderson. “Scoop” is based on McAllister's 2022 memoir about her decade on the program, and she is an executive producer on the film.
There have long been rumors in the media that former friends and colleagues were attacked by a froideur, and there are already many in the tabloids There have been irritable briefings for years.
The concern appears to have started when Maitlis and Esme Wren, then editor of Newsnight, gave an interview to the Radio Times in 2020, explaining how they got the interview, without McAllister ever being mentioned. “Sam tried to laugh about it,” a source later told the Mail on Sunday. “It seemed very strange that the two women did not mention the other, much younger woman in an interview where they talked about how the interview went.”
Those close to McAllister also complained that she was paid only 10 percent from Maitlis' £325,000 salary and that although the producer paid for her own buses to palace meetings, the star presenter included taxi trips as an expense. McAlister left the corporation in 2021.
“It’s a good story: a brave, underpaid woman. The truth is she was working part-time while Emily was Newsnight's lead presenter,” says a former colleague of the couple. “BBC producers don't make huge amounts of money. It's not that she's terribly underpaid.
Emily Maitlis and Sam McAllister in 2021. Photo: Getty
“Sam was angry that she didn't get a pay rise, but that's not how the BBC works. There’s a licensing fee: you can’t just raise people’s salaries just because they’re doing well,” the source adds. “She was never going to give her a raise because no one was getting a raise. Nobody received any bonuses. This is the BBC. Everyone who participated in this interview received a “Well done” rating and moved on to the next one.”
McAlister is undoubtedly an impressive figure. The first in her family to graduate, she studied law at Edinburgh University and trained as a criminal barrister before switching to journalism at the BBC. A single mother who juggled raising her son with a career in television rose through the ranks to become a trusted producer at Newsnight.
Her first meeting with the Duke's family came in 2018, when she was asked to consider interviewing him about his entrepreneurial venture Pitch & Palace. McAllister rejected this offer, as well as another in May 2019, when Andrew was willing to discuss anything other than his friendship with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, but continued open dialogue with the palace.
By November of that year, following Epstein's suicide and the release of testimony from his victims, a meeting was called to discuss the possibility of an interview. McAllister, Maitlis and then-deputy editor Stuart McLean, described by one former colleague as “the brains behind it”, sat at a table at Buckingham Palace with Andrew, his eldest daughter, Princess Beatrice, and Amanda Thirsk, his most trusted assistant. who is played by Keeley Hawes in the TV series Scoop. After consulting with the late Queen, York's team agreed to continue the work.
Billie Piper as Sam McAllister in Scoop. Photo: NetflixThe fallout continues to impact Andrew, who has not returned to royal duties since the interview aired, as well as those behind the scenes. Maitlis, 53, has always refused to comment on reports of her relationship with McAllister. Friends of the presenter, who left the BBC in 2022 to present the News Agents podcast with fellow corporate evacuee John Sopel, say there is no tension between her and McAllister and that she is “thrilled” that the mock interview is “ something people want to see.” The level of interest bodes well for her own Amazon series, A Very Royal Scandal, in which she will be played by Luther star Ruth Wilson; it is scheduled to be released towards the end of the year.
There have been rumors that Maitlis will not cast McAllister in her own series, where Michael Sheen plays the Duke – but those close to her insist that “of course” there is McAlister, as well as “as many team members as they can write down dramatically.”
For her part, McAlister has not publicly fanned the flames. “I’m truly happy for Emily,” she wrote in an article for Tatler last month. “I can’t wait to find out who plays me and see Ruth Wilson play her.” She tells me: “Emily is brilliant and I wish her nothing but happiness and success.”
If there is less animosity between McAllister and Maitlis than previously claimed, the former's former colleagues appear to have objected to the film's high-profile publicity campaign McAllister. “We find this all rather unpleasant,” says one. “This is terrible.”
A senior Newsnight executive says it all seems “a little undignified” because the interview was about the alleged exploitation of women and had real consequences, destroying the careers of Andrew and Thirsk.
Another says: “Sam is a very good self-promoter. Many people are baffled by all this brazenness. That doesn't mean Sam wasn't part of it – she obviously was. But it essentially implies that the interview – and read Sam about the interview – saved Newsnight from a whole series of cuts, which was not true. This is a case where someone who is actively involved in something exaggerates and implies that he did everything himself.”
The film's release was more highly anticipated than the interview on which it was based. McAllister, as well as Piper, Anderson and Rufus Sewell, who plays Andrew, appeared everywhere on magazine covers and newspaper supplements, as well as on the sofas of touring talk shows and radio studios. Such is the level of international interest that McAlister spent this week in New York with Piper for an interview on US television to promote the launch.
Rufus Sewell as Prince Andrew in the TV series “Scoop” Photo: Netflix
So it's perhaps telling that one of the few places McAllister hasn't appeared to promote the film is on Newsnight itself – despite being on the very last highlight of the programme. “Everyone is too angry,” says the insider. The newsroom also noted the absence of Newsnight staff and alumni, including Maitlis, from McAllister's book launch and film premiere last week. “It’s essentially a team game,” says the one who was snubbed. “According to her, it’s a one-woman show.” McAlister says she “invited many of my colleagues to participate in all elements of this process.”
(Some were surprised when Sarah Vine – the ex-wife of cabinet minister and friend of McAllister Michael Gove – said in her newspaper column that she had been called back to the premiere at the last minute. Production sources say Vine was not originally invited and was rebuffed when she asked take a colleague's non-transferable ticket).
McAllister's other former colleagues give her credit. “She walked through the door and none of this would have happened without her,” they say. “She did it on her own too, and that’s something.”
Gillian Anderson as Emily Maitlis in Scoop Photo: Netflix
Meanwhile, those close to the prince are wondering whether all the journalists involved are exaggerating their roles. “I'm not sure how much of it was Newsnight's stubbornness – it was vanity on Amanda's part,” says a long-time member of the York team. “She told me about a possible radio interview [in which Andrew could clear his name] a year before it happened. She wanted to do it.”
Since leaving the BBC two years after her triumph, McAllister has capitalized on the attention and become a fixture in her signature black leather, designer accessories and snakeskin boots – always paired with a pair of large sunglasses. “She managed to create her own image and be part of it all,” says an admiring former colleague. McAllister has also become a regular on the afternoon talk circuit, talking about negotiation and leadership, and receives fees ranging from £2,500 to £5,000 per talk.
One Newsnight source says the Scoop release and all the attendant publicity is “insane” , as BBC bosses cut the program's staff by 60 per cent and transform it from an investigative powerhouse into a half-hour discussion show.
“Although there is clearly some irritation that Sam has turned into a Hollywood star while she I was just doing what we all do every day,” they say. “This is a timely reminder that the program can have a real impact.”
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